Ever since Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was released over thirty years ago, millions of viewers have fallen in love with this unforgettable movie based on the classic novel by Roald Dahl. Now from the film's director Mel Stuart, comes Pure Imagination, the first book ever written on the blockbuster picture that won over kids and adults alike, making it the legacy that it is today.

From how Willy Wonka went from the page to the screen--Stuart's twelve-year-old daughter asked him to make a movie of her favorite book--to each step that was involved, beginning with the pre-production stage, the development of the set design to shooting and editing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, here is a full, insider account of all you've ever wanted to know about the film. Filled with over one hundred lavish photographs of the production, most of which have never been seen, Pure Imagination is the ultimate companion piece for loversof the film.

Stuart's engaging, light-hearted manner comes alive on every page as he shares colorful anecdotes, interviews, and fascinating trivia, such as the untold story of why the Oompa Loompas have orange faces and green hair, and little-known facts, including how Gene Wilderwas chosen to play the part of Willy Wonka. He describes how the film became a huge hit, and why it still captures the imaginations of audiences today.

Mel Stuart has worked in film and television for over 40 years. He has produced and directed various features including Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dozens of documentaries including The Making of the President, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Four Days in November, Wattstax, Man Ray-Prophet of the Avant-Garde, and the reality series Ripley's Believe It or Not. Mr. Stuart has been the recipient of four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award,and an Oscar nomination.

Dan Epstein: Whose idea was it to do the book, was it your daughter's I think I read?

Mel Stuart: The book came about because my daughter came to me; she was about 11 or 12 years old. She said to me daddy, I want you to make this book into a movie. You see as a kid she didn't realize that it wasn't that easy to make a book into a movie. I was working with a man named David Wolper and he was great at getting projects going. I read the book and I thought it was kind of interesting it might make a good movie and I gave it to him. He never read the book, I just told him the story, and it's about a guy with a chocolate factory with four bad kids and one good kid. I just gave him an outline. A few days later he went over to see the people at Quaker Oats about a documentary we were doing. Because of the conversation they mentioned that they were going to try and make a chocolate bar and do we have anything along the lines that would go with a chocolate bar and help them. He said have I got an idea, and he gave them the idea of that he should do this book that he had never read about the chocolate factory and they got all excited and he got them to put up, in those days a lot of money, one million eight to do the feature. The only sad thing is they gave us the money to do the film but the never figured out how to put the chocolate bar together.

DE: Yeah, I heard they were melting on the shelves.

MS: It was melting or it was stale whatever it was it didn't work. So that's the sad part, but that's how that came about. For a moment we thought about doing it as an animated thing but I hate all sorts of Disney cartoons. I really hate to see chipmunks with smiling faces singing. We need a picture with human faces.

DE: The book that you wrote Pure Imagination was also spurred on by one of your kids.

MS: Oh yeah, to write the book, my younger son Andrew, who is in NY, thought there would be enough people interested in Willy Wonka. So he is the one who actually got the book going managed to get St. Martins Press into publishing it. And my middle child, Peter, was in the picture he was a very good actor he played the part of Winkelmann, a young man who keeps running in and telling everyone what's going on. So all three are associated with the movie in one way or the other.

DE: That's great. One thing you didn't get into at the end of the book is I thought that [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author] Roald Dahl was not happy with the movie?

MS: That's true.

DE: Did he ever express to you what he thought was wrong with it, was it the fact that you changed some of the script?

MS: Here is the thing it's very important that you know this, you can't film a book. A book is a book and a film is a film and you must change it because what they do in a book you can't do in a film. You can follow the general outline but you have to make changes that a book doesn't call for that a film does call for. For instance, I think I pointed out; there was no villain in the book, so we put Slugworth. There was no gobstopper; there was no test of Charlie's integrity, so we did a whole gobstopper thing. We had to invent something for Charlie to do something wrong so we did the fizzy lifting room. In many ways we changed the character of Wonka itself because Wonka was a singing and dancing, prancing man and you can't have a lead in a small character. You need the strength because this guy is really a father figure. One of the other big things about book and film, I'm sure you read the story about the Oompa Loompa's. In the book they were black pigmies and some of the people I knew in Hollywood, a black actor said, Mel you can't have black pigmies, and remember this was the 70's. And he was absolutely right, it was degrading. In the regular addition to the book they changed them to little white people. The asked me what I was going to do about it and on the spur of the moment I said I'll give them orange faces and green hair, and everybody was happy and that's how that came about. But see I couldn't do the book the way the book was written and therefore Roald Dahl always was unhappy that the picture did not look like his book. Its terminal conversations with the grandparents in bed. In other words it's a whole different thing you can't have scenes that go one more than two or three pages in a movie but in a book you can go on forever. So I think he was upset that it wasn't what he originally wrote or thought the picture was going to be, but I'm interested in the picture I'm not interested in anything else except making the most interesting, entertaining, and meaningful film that I could put up.

DE: From what I have read over the years he was kind of nuts.

MS: I don't want to get into his personality but he was a very cold person, let's put it that way. His personality was very cold and he had. I don't want to go into it. The family has been good enough to help me and I don't want to go into a personal attach on Roald Dahl. I can tell you that we didn't follow the book and that was one of the reasons why he was so unhappy. I don't want to get into it, that's cheap journalism, that's the fucken New York Post.

DE: Was Wonka just another movie for you, because I know you weren't doing films like that at the time, you were doing documentaries?

MS: I was doing documentaries but I already had done If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium [released in 1969] and I had done another movie, I Love My Wife [released in 1970]. I was looking for a movie and it was at the time it came about and my daughter wanted me to do it and then looking into it I thought that it would be rather challenging for me because I was brought up in my whole soul I believe in a non-fiction realist and I've done so many documentaries. This was like a challenge this was a fantasy. The whole thing about it if you watch it carefully, the reason why I still think it works the way it does is that it's as realistic as it could be within the genre of fantasy. I made sure you didn't know what city it was shot in. I made sure you didn't know what time it was shot in. I wanted it to be able to last. All the dialogue is, and we added a great deal of dialogue, is very literate, very sophisticated and all the playing is very realistic. Now is there such a thing as the chocolate factory [like in the book]? No. And there is no such thing as Oompa Loompa's. Within the context of it I always wanted to keep the acting and the shooting, the whole assemblage had to be as realistic as possible within that thing. So it was a challenge to me. When you make a movie or a documentary or anything, you try and do the best that you possibly can and after that it's up to the audience. There is nothing anybody can do after a certain point. So if it catches on with the audience I did my best and this one turned out to be far more successful than some of the other things that I have done. Although, you can't, on television know what's successful. In other words you go on you put on the documentary on television, and two million people see it, they see it once and that's the end of it. A movie it's possible to judge because some how, because it was a movie it resonates in a human way. If you look around, what great television show have you seen that you remember as a one, you may remember a series, like Seinfeld but you don't remember one? Only feature films seem to have a long shelf life. If they play on television, now to me the greatest film ever made was 8 ? by Fellini but you don't see that on TV do you? Fellini is the master, he is the great one. But you see Willy Wonka every week on some damn cable channel. What people forget to realize is that there is perception and reality. Friends goes on and 35 million people see it, wow, but you know what, Two hundred thirty five million people didn't see it. But the reality is out of the five billion people around the world thirty five million have seen it, so it's perception that's important. If a movie is playing all the time, like Wonka did, people seemed to be attracted to it; it gets to have a little bit more of a cult status.

DE: Initially when Wonka came out it didn't do well.

MS: It did terribly I was up against Ben the story of a rat. It died and we came in 54th for the year. But something happened a few years later when it began to play on television and the audience began to grow. And I think part of it was it's a story about four rotten miserable kids, an insane inventor of chocolate with a great deal of sophisticated dialogue, that both the kids and their parents, particularly college kids could enjoy. So they see it again and they want their kids to see it and they could see it with their kids because they enjoy Wonka's performance.

DE: But all that didn't happen until the video boom.

MS: Right, right, until the 80's. it was first on television.

DE: Did you kind of forget about the movie a little bit?

MS: Me? I thought it was a disaster. I knew at the box office that it was a failure, so I forgot about it until I think they decided to play it the first time, if I'm not mistaken, against super bowl. [laughs] But enough people saw it that the sponsors of the networks said hey the want to see this again and then they began to play it. And they you're absolutely right once video came in and people could have it in their home then it just sort of multiplied. I mean I'm amazed to be pretty honest with you that ABC put it on in prime time last Sunday. 7:30 pm Primetime on ABC.

DE: And it did well?

MS: It did fair. But I mean that's because everybody has seen it. But it did ok. And now it's like a Christmas special, like a Thanksgiving thing. And then every week some cable network is playing it somewhere. And that's what happened and I think the real reason it's hung around is because, people don't quite know, but it's very sophisticated. And the language is, we have an enormous amount of quotes from Shakespeare and other writers and poets and people somehow when Violet Beauregarde's taken away, Mr. Beauregarde is all upset and Wonka says to him tell me "Where is fancy bread in the heart or in the head?" Now that's not the kind of quote you get in a normal movie. But it's a very poetic thing and this brat that is being carried away tell me where is fancy bread. Mr. Beauregarde's fancy, is fancy coming out of your heart or your head because it should come out of your head instead of your heart. Now people can't really get it at the time but everybody hears it. The kids and the adults go on out of the room, and they sort of go with it. And it gives it a kind of different touch in so many spots. I think it works, I think the use of accepting. Here is the most important thing you can say, this was made as an adult film not as a children's film. I never anticipated this would be for children. Children are very smart and they'll get it, and they have.

DE: There were a lot of cult movies coming out in the 70's that made it big among the midnight movie circuit was that ever an idea or was it release strictly as a children's film?

MS: Paramount first released it as a children's film. The sad part was Radio City Music Hall wanted to play it, which in those days was the benchmark. For some very stupid reason the people at Paramount decided to just put in general release in theaters instead of making it a special attraction. It might have done better if they distributed it better. And after seven years they gave it up because nothing was happening it was dead.

DE: I read also that you didn't disagree with some of the reviews it was given. I read one that Variety said that it seem kind of cynical.

MS: It was cynical. It was mature and it was cynical. It was a truth, as true as I could, facing of a reality of a life in a fantasy. There must be some reason why it is hanging around. With all due respect Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a lot of other movies aren't played every week. And it's because, I think, it's literate and it's sophisticated and it was meant for an adult audience.

DE: The movie is psychedelic, a lot of people especially in college, do drugs and watch that movie.

MS: [laughs] Well I've never taken a drug in my life. I'm wound up as it is, I don't need drugs. It wasn't intended to be a psychedelic trip it was intended to be a scary trip to heighten the tension in the picture and to throw you off for a little while. To have and adventurous ride and to be scary but it was never intended to be psychedelic. But if people want to feel it's a psychedelic ride who am I to complain?

DE: It could be interpreted a lot of different ways. it could that it was the last it psychedelic trip of the 60's.

MS: Oh yeah, it may have reflected in a strange way without me even knowing it. I was reflecting something you know that was part of the culture but I didn't set out to say, I'm going to make a psychedelic trip. I set out to say I'm going to make a scary trip down a river.

DE: I'm sure you have seen the Marilyn Manson video, I was wondering what you thought of that?

MS: Yeah. Oh well I don't know, actually he's a great cookie. He is not stupid man at all, I've seen interviews with him on other subjects and he is very good. I am honored that he did the video and I enjoyed seeing it. It was kind of fun seeing him doing it.

DE: On television there have been dozens of parades not only in the Simpsons comic there was the Simpsons television show, and it was on another cartoon.

MS: It was on Saturday Night Live twice. The weird thing for me, they are putting on a skit that they assume that everybody knows what an Oompa Loompa is. You know what I mean. They know the lines. They were re-reading the lines in the boat trip and they assume at 12:00 am that everybody can refer to this trip. That enough people know it that they could put it on their show. Let me put it this way I don't think they would put on a scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

DE: No, they definitely would not.

MS: Because nobody would get the reference. So I am honored. I'm honored by the fact that Saturday Night Live thinks it is well known enough to do a skit about it twice. Al Gore did a skit about it. Al Gore was in it he was the accountant for Wonka factory, and they did a whole thing about how badly the factory is being run. They had a guy playing Charlie, Wonka and some Oompa Loompa's running in and there is Al Gore sitting there at the desk doing a Willy Wonka skit. Unbelievable.

DE: Did you ever read the sequel to the book the Great Glass Elevator?

MS: No I didn't. I did the picture and I was done with it I wanted to go on to other things.

DE: No one has ever approached you about doing a sequel or anything like that?

MS: No. Not me. Maybe somebody who wants to do a sequel. That's fine but I'm in a different position. First of all I hate sequels and I hate remakes. I think that if something is good enough the first time then let it be. I mean we've seen examples, Psycho, Sabrina, even Men in Black II. Very rarely do they turn out to be better than the original.

DE: When was the last time that you saw it, was it for the DVD that you watched it?

MS: Actually I haven't sat through the whole thing; I've seen pieces of it. And I've used it for lectures and stuff, I go in and I grab off some sections. But you remember how many times I've seen it. I know it backwards and forwards. I saw it with my kids a couple of years later after it was done and so forth. No, you're absolutely right; when I sat down to write the book I watched the whole thing.

DE: How did that strike you now?

MS: As I wrote in the book there are only two gags that go on, otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

DE: Perfect.

MS: I would have changed those two gags.

DE: Was it the Nazi?

MS: The Nazi gag because nobody. I don't think anybody knows who Hitler is anymore. I would have left that one in. But the biggest one I really should have changed was the musical joke. The overture to Figaro.

DE: Right.

MS: That is where Wonka introduces them to the factory and plays a little tune on the piano.

DE: And she says Rachmaninoff?

MS: The joke was Rachmaninoff but nobody got it because the tune he played was the overture to the Manager Figaro. I'm a musician also, I started out that way. And I thought gee, that's pretty funny, he's playing Mozart and she says Rachmaninoff. The only thing is the gag doesn't work because nobody knows the overture to the Manager Figaro.

DE: When people tell you they love the movie what is the scene they tell you they remember most, is there any one that they pick out?

MS: I think the either Wonka or the Oompa Loompa's are the two things that they first think about. Oompa Loompa's especially, the kind of resonate, because I guess they look so strange and they were kind of cute. A lot of people talk about the trip down the river and how it scared them when they were a kid. And then they talk about other scenes and so forth.

DE: What is your best memory of making the film?

MS: The day I finished. My best memory was coming in and finding out that Veruca Salt had rehearsed secretly with the choreographer and they gave a performance that I thought was extraordinary for a twelve year old girl singing I got it now. That was my most pleasant day because I just thought she hit it right out of the ballpark. If you look at that scene it doesn't look like a hard song to sing, the chord intervals and structure are very weird and she got every nuance. Her performance really blew me away. I guess that would be my favorite thing.

DE: Thank you so much for making that movie, it's one of the greatest films of all time.